Literary Depictions of Moors from Herodotus to Procopius

Abstract

The Moors have been regarded by Graeco-Roman authors with a mixture of ambivalence and admiration. From the highly positive characterizations of Moorish giants like Masinissa (238-148 BCE) whose achievements the Romans lauded, to figures like Jugurtha (fl. 118-104 BCE) and Gildo (fl. 396-398 CE) whose hostilities with Rome earned them both scorn and ridicule, Moorish figures loom large in the pages of ancient historians from Herodotus to Procopius. This thesis examines the shifting portrayal of Moors from their earliest literary depictions in Greek literary sources to the late Roman literary portrayals of the sixth century CE. It argues that certain stereotypes regarding Moors, a problematic term that will be discussed in greater detail, continued relatively unchanged in Graeco-Roman authors, and that this was highly dependent on genre, political context, and intertextuality. It further argues that negative vs. positive portrayals of Moors can be understood better via an examination of the context of an author on an individual level, where political background was key to an historian’s evaluation of a certain Moorish figure or of Moors in general.